This morning marks the last morning of the year 2007 and I thought I should close this year giving thanks to God, for things that have happened which I may or may not understand why. Surely the Lord works for the good of those who love him and I am convinced that even though some-things do not make sense, good will result as that's the promise of God!
Psalm 1:1-3
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
The promise of God greeted me this morning as I flipped open my bible, before taking physical food, something which I have not done for the longest time... Yet God is quick to make himself known. Thank you LORD for the spiritual food.
Yesteday, I met my spiritual son and his cell group, boys from the Barnabas club which he has been serving faithfully over the last 3 + years. My heart is fill with delight and thanksgiving. I know its a milestone for him and as he trusts the Lord all these years, he bears fruit in God's season. My prayer is that he will grow even more in the LORD as he leads the boys through the challenging teenage years.
Another surprise yesterday was that a spiritual grandson, who has been away for the last 2 years came to service. He has grown physically and is now taller than my wife! Kian Seh was saying that God's word to him in the year of Sabbath is that those who left will return. I know thats God's heart, like the parable of the prodigal son. I claim this word for next year.
Lastly, am glad to see all my four spiritual grandsons yesterday... they have definitely grown up. My prayer is that I will be able to give more input in their lives next year.
For those with infants and using liquid cleanser for cleaning baby accessories such as milk bottles, vacuum pump body, etc... we have discovered a way to make cleaning less expensive. The liquid cleanser is pretty expensive to us costing >$ 10 a refill pack and will finish in about a week. What we have been doing is using ~ 1 tablespoon into 1.5 litre of water in a basin. Before cleaning the accessories after use, rinse once with water first before cleaning in the solution. This is to remove all bulk milk stains so as to keep the solution clear. After that, clean the accessories in the solution and then, do a final rinse before sterilizing. The washing solution can be reused again and again in the day and should be disposed off in the night. Hope this is helpful.
Today is my elder sis birthday and we want to sing you a birthday song! Happy birthday to you... happy birthday to you.. happy birthday to youuuu... hap---py birthday Tooooo Youuuu.
On this special day, I want to bless you with God's word from Psalm 139: 13-16
For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.
Pray that you will have an enjoyable time later and may the hand of the Lord uphold you and your family through this last phase of your pregnancy. Greetings from Belle and Leianne!
And she weighs 5.7 kg as per 21 Aug at 9 weeks 5 days old. Not a bad weight gain for a 2 months + baby and she is really getting too heavy to carry sometimes. Thank God that He has been watching over the little girl and indeed, she has been blessed with pretty good health. However, I have put on a little weight from 85 to 87 kg and thats not too good a news but nevertheless, thankful that everything turned out well after the medical check up on tuesday night.
Here is another more recent photo of the little gal.. cute huh?
Apart from parenting, the Lord has been speaking to me to rise up in the marketplace. On monday during our prayer meeting, I knew the Lord is calling me to take ownership of my workplace and I pray that as I obey, the glory of God will be revealed. As I have mentioned previously that I'll still be staying put for at least a year.....I know in my heart and spirit that the Lord is not through yet and He wants to bring a breakthrough and wants me to be part of it.
Thanks be to God for my promotion and pay increment. Although the pay rise did not hit what I have asked for in the beginning of the year, I know that the Lord is providing and acknowledge once again that every good thing comes from Him! Beside the $$ and promotion, I was told that my ranking has improved and I believe its affirmation from the Lord. In my next phase in career development, I sense God leading me to be like Jonathan, a king maker by giving full support to my boss and also to help my fellow colleagues to be successful.
I thought this set lunch prepared by my wife looked really good. I believe it tasted really good too.
She is currently have lots of steak and fish. She likes cod and salmon and I buy quite a bit to store up in the freezer so that she can have them for lunch. We normally pack our dinner as it is quite troublesome to prepare since I reach home from work only at 630pm earliest.
Still thinking about the best way to go about our dinner. We order takeaways sometimes from Thai Express, Jerry steakhouse, pizza hut etc... but these options are pretty expensive,between $25-$50.... looking forward to home-cook style dinner.
Let me know if you have tried and tasted any cheap but nice takeaways that can be ordered from home and delivers right to our doorstep.
since I last blogged in late July before I went back to work... the past 2 weeks have been hectic... I thought the plant would have completed the startup and things would have been easier from then. Things did not happen the way I would like it to be and so, I was thrown into the thick of action starting up. I struggled to participate as there were already contacts for the units starting up and I felt that in some ways, I was interfering with the instructions given by some of my colleagues. Yet, people were coming by asking me questions which I cannot just brush aside and say," Please look for so and so for update..." That will definitely look bad on me, so I thought.
I could not go for cell group on wednesday as we were busy troubleshooting the coloured rundown product from the dewaxer and I felt really bad as we have not met for ages due to the busy schedule in church over the last month due to 100k blessing. At the end of the day, I managed to pray for 16 person, 4 short of what I believe the Lord has call me to do. However, I know things are not going to be the same and I want to continue this lifestyle of blessing and praying at my workplace. I was told by my boss that I will still be sticking around for a while, up to 1st half of next year and not exactly happy about the plan. I have been in the same job for the last 6 years this coming september and feel that it has been too long and I need a new environment, new challenges and new experience apart from what I am doing now as a process engineer. Yet, I know God has His plans for me. Yesterday during cell group, Qing Tian prayed for me the verse Proverbs 3:5, " For I know my plans for you.. to prosper and not to harm..." I know God has a specific purpose and I will continue to look forward to Monday whereby I can see God moving in my workplace, where He wants me to be for the NOW.
Update on Leianne is that she is now sleeping for 8 hours through the night! Well, for last night and pretty comfortable in the pram. Thanks to the training her mum has been giving her. She's two months old now and growing prettier by the day. She has also cut down to 5-6 feed a day which is good news for Belle as she will have more time to rest.
Staying at home is really not easy after 2 solid weeks of leave to help out my wife and with our newborn. I really enjoy cooking... well once or twice in a week is ok but everyday is a challenge. I have to think of what to cook and what my wife will like to eat and have variety over the week so that we will not get too bored. I must take my hat of homemakers and say that all of you have done a tremendous job at home.
I also discovered the escalating usage cooking oil, rice, cooking gas, soy sauce etc etc over the last 1.5 months....For comparisan sake, we used 1 bottle of olive oil and 1 cylinder of cooking gas over the past year but finished the same amount in 1 plus month!
Anyway, going back to work really soon.... my prayer is that Belle will be able to cope alone and that the Lord will be her constant help in taking care of the home and the child.
Leianne set the longest sleep record last night for about 6 hours when she slept at 12 midnight and woke up at about 6 am this morning! Thats 7 hrs in between feed and both belle and myself were really excited. However, thats not forgetting that she did not really nap well yesterday evening as we went to church for the 100 k prayer meeting and her long sleep could be due to that change. Well, we were encouraged nevertheless and if that trend continues tonight and tomorrow, for 3 consecutive days, then we can be sure that she is sleeping through the night by the beginning of 7th week.
Well, this will be an important milestone for our PDF baby if she manages to sleep through and we look forward to that day... hopefully in two. Cheers!
We had quite a day as Leianne woke up having a swollen left eye lid. We discussed about it and decided to see the doctor in the morning just to ensure that she's ok. Appointment was made early this morning and we went down... Thank God that everything was ok... Doctor said it could be due to fluid accumulating on the left side over the night as baby laid on one side during her sleep and not of major concern. As for the rest of the pimple lookalike marks are probably heat rashes. Phew! Lesson learnt.
Baby weighs 4.6 kg as on today and Belle weighs 49kg and me, 85kg. Great achievement for all of us... Baby's gain of ~500g in one plus week and is pretty very normal and both of us lost good pounds to bring us back to original state.. Haha. I think feeding the baby directly from the breast really helps as I witness how Belle shed her pregnancy weight right after the baby was bornt. Just want to encourage potential mummies to persevere with direct feeding from the breast as it is:
(1) Good bonding between mum and child
(2) Child trained to suckle and good jaw exercise
(3) No additional bottles or formulas for at least 6 months when going out
(4) Don't have to spend additional $$ on formulas
(5) Mum will regain pre-pregnancy figure at no cost!
I am reading a book written by Landa Cope, " An Introduction to The Old Testament Template" and into chapter 8 on the topic of God and Science and its amazing how it became so relevent this morning when I read a report on the Straits Time on "New Aids weapon: Genetic Engineering". The amazing thing is not about how genetic engineering can help fight HIV.....
In the report, it was quoted" But the biggest hope for the world poorest nations, which will not initially be able to afford these new drugs but carry the heaviest Aids burden is, circumcision" It has been suspected that circumcision reduces men's susceptability to HIV infection.
In God's wisdom, circumcision was commanded by God to distinguish God's people from the nations and He also taught Israelites how to prevent infectious diseases from spreading through the Mose's law in Exodus 15:26 "If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His eyes, if you pay attention to His commands and keep all His decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you" and in Deuteronomy 23:9-14
There is always a question on Science disproving the work of God... however, I can only say that what science really does is to discover what God has already made and I say that from the perspective of an engineering grad. Surely, the Lord is the Lord of Science and came before Science.
As we train our little girl to sleep on her own, here is one footage showing her pre-nap activity... commando crawl! Its interesting that sometimes, she will rotate herself up to 90 degree of her original position before falling asleep in the prone position. Anyway, here is own cute little commando in action.
